Good marketing plays an important role in the success of your business and is vital when you’re trying to increase your brand or product’s visibility.

Your marketing tools should be a combination of using mostly techy apps with the occasional hard copy version of something such as:

SEOTools for Excel;

Ad Banners;

Analytics;

Email Campaigns;

Marketo;

Social Media Marketing Tools;

Twitter

HootSuite

Facebook

Hard copy posters and flyers.

Although, almost everything is online based today, promotional items like magnets, business cards, and flyers are still a good idea. Especially, if you’re going to meet clients, or attending conferences etc. the personal touch is important. And it’s so easy and so cheap to do brochure printing by print-print.co.uk, and print booklets, posters etc. why would you not? Place your order online a few days before with digital printing services and have everything delivered to your office.

You can even have your banner ad printed in hard copy and use it on promotional items. Banner ads can be a highly effective method of advertising if used properly. Your goal should be to intrigue and capture the interest of your target audience so that they click your ad, the last thing you want to do is annoy them.

When you begin the process of creating and designing your banner, here are few things to keep in mind:

1. Keep it clean and simple
Less is always more and it doesn’t just apply to makeup! Nobody likes looking at a heavily cluttered advertisement where they need to dig around to find out what you’re selling or what message you’re trying to get across.

Your ad isn’t a disco ball so steer clear of overly flashy effects, and too many loud colors, which will overpower your message.

2. Make it interactive
Your banner should be interactive in an interesting way because you want people to click on it and explore further.

Shooting ducks and guns used to be popular a few decades ago but not so much anymore. For inspiration spend some time going through Google’s incredibly interactive and super fun doodles.

Your ad should also make it clear where people are supposed to click and where it will take them. For instance, if you are promoting a Free Trial for your hosting site, the clickable button should read: Free Trial.

3. Be consistent
The website that the banner will take the user to once they have clicked on the ad should be consistent with your ad and the website should have the same visual look and feel, i.e.colors, font, graphics etc.

Essentially, the user should find a clear correlation between the ad they clicked and the site they ended up at. They should not feel confused about what they are looking at.

4. Cookies are your friend
People will click on ad banners in one of two scenarios:

If they are killing time and looking for something to do

If the product the banner is advertising is relevant or useful to them in any way

Use behavior and cookies based marketing to target your key audience and strategically place your ads where they are bound to get the most number of interested hits.

Banner ads are worth the effort and money if done correctly and provide a good way of increasing visibility and getting your face out there. Spend some time doing research and look at some successful banner ads, you’ll know what you’re up against and you might pick up a few ideas too.

Last but not least, go by your gut feeling, the purpose of banners and designs is to be creative. Don’t pigeonhole yourself by trying to stay with what is or is not the norm.